


Art Therapy

by xoxoMouse



Series: PJO Personal Canon (Solangelo Centric) [3]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Divergent, Gen, HoO - Freeform, Hurt and comfort?, I always fucking said these kids needed therapy, Mental Health Awareness, Mention of Mental Illness, PJO, Pre Trials of Apollo, Therapy, ToA - Freeform, Will is mentioned but this is a Nico-centric fic, chb, fuck it I gave them a therapist, i demand child support payment from Rick Riordan for taking care of all his fucking kids, mention of PTSD, mention of anxiety, mention of depression, nothing in here should be triggering but stuff is mentioned, post blood of olympus, pre-relationship solangelo, solangelo, yes i think it can be both canon compliant and divergent at the same time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24405562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xoxoMouse/pseuds/xoxoMouse
Summary: Nico makes a friendship bracelet in therapy and realizes he doesn't have any friends to give it to.
Series: PJO Personal Canon (Solangelo Centric) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884076
Comments: 7
Kudos: 60





	Art Therapy

Arts and crafts were an important part of Nico’s therapy. 

He’d been seeing the camp therapist for about two months now and...well, so far it was really hard. He’d wanted to talk to her at first, he _had,_ that’s why he went to her office in the Big House. But it was hard to talk to her even though she was a demigod. She was a child of Hermes, but she hadn’t been at camp for either of the wars. No, she was out living a normal life while _they_ handled things. She couldn’t get it; she didn’t understand what it was like for them even though she should have. How could she? She was at camp during peacetime. She got to play capture the flag and convince Chiron to dress up in a prom dress. She didn’t live through two big prophecies, she was never asked to put her life on the line for the whole of humanity, she never had to walk through the depths of Tartarus _alone._ She could never understand. 

But she didn’t claim to. She was just doing her best to help the kids left in the aftermath. It was hard to open up to her at first. He answered her questions in a detached way, gave her his backstory hesitantly but in full. But when he got to the things that happened when he was in Tartarus he hadn’t been able to keep himself from breaking down. He’d pulled his legs up onto the big leather chair in her office and sobbed into the knees of his jeans. The same thing happened when he recalled the twin giants, the bronze jar, the death trance. He couldn’t be in tight spaces anymore and the taste of pomegranates, even the smell of them, would make him violently sick. 

Most of his sessions were him crying across the desk from her while he tried and often failed to form coherent words. Every once in awhile, though, he calmed down enough for her to give him advice on how to cope. She told him that the bouts of dread he was experiencing were called panic attacks and she taught him grounding techniques to help him through them. She gave him a journal with a lock and promised she’d never ask to read it—and she started to teach him arts and crafts. It was a good hobby, she’d said. Kids needed good hobbies; distractions that aren’t weapons training and battle strategy. 

That’s what he was doing now. It was a particularly calm session, one where he was recalling what he could of the Lotus Hotel and letting himself focus on the knots his fingers were tying on the soft, brightly colored thread in front of him. Orange, yellow, and purple threads, six of them, two of each color, were taped to the desk in front of him and he knotted them with intense focus, tying the orange around the first strand and sliding it up. Then the second, the third, fourth, and so on until he got to the end and switched to the first yellow thread. 

“So I think I did a lot of stuff in the Hotel,” he said. “Had a bunch of obsessions. But I only remember Mythomagic.” 

After yellow came purple. He pulled the strings taught so they wouldn’t curl up on him. He was about done now and it looked so cool, all the knots tied together and lining up to make a thin bracelet. He was going to have to get more thread to keep making them, even if he didn’t plan on ever wearing any of them. 

“Do you remember anyone from back then?” She asked. “Any friends?” 

His hands faltered almost unnoticeably and he had to go back and fix the crooked knot he’d just made. 

“No. I’ve never been good at friends. I don’t really have any now, either,” he answered. “Well, Reyna and Hazel. But they live in New Rome. I play chess with Annabeth when she visits but she’s going off to college soon so... I don’t know. People just don’t like me.” 

“It’s normal to feel like that. Well, it makes sense for you right now at least. Hopefully, you won’t always feel that way. I promise people like you more than your brain wants to let you think they do.” 

“Is that a depression thing, too?” He asked. In one of their first sessions, she’d gone through the DSM with him and said he had symptoms for a lot of stuff, depression, anxiety, PTSD. He still didn’t know how to feel but she said she’d help him work through it. He trusted her to tell the truth. 

She nodded. “It can be. I also think you might be afraid to make friends because you don’t want people to leave you.” 

His eyes stung and she was handing him a tissue before he could even raise his hand to wipe the wetness from his eyes. 

She continued. “But I think there are lots of kids here who would love to be your friend if you’re willing to let them try.” 

Nico laughed dejectedly. He tied off the last row on his bracelet, tying it together with a slipknot so it could be adjusted. “Like who? I’m not exactly...welcoming.” 

“You are not nearly as scary as you’ve been led to believe,” she told him with a gentle smile. “That kid from the infirmary doesn’t seem to be afraid of you at all.” 

“Will?” He shook his head. “He just doesn’t know me well enough yet. Once he does he’ll realize I’m...” _broken. Evil._ **_Not_ ** _friend material._

“He could,” She said. “But I don’t think he will. You’re hardest on yourself. Besides, doesn’t he deserve a chance to be your friend before you decide for him?” 

He looked at the bracelet he’d slipped around his wrist, felt the individual knots of it with the pad of his thumb. “I guess.” 

“Good. I think he’ll surprise you, Nico. Sometimes we have to be a little vulnerable if we want good things to happen.” 

He nodded and stood, pushing the leather chair in as he did. “I’ll think about it,” he said. “Same time next week?” 

She nodded and closed his file, slipping it safely inside the locked bottom drawer of her desk. “Of course. And come in sooner if you need to—you know my hours.” 

“Thanks.” 

He passed another camper in the waiting room and she smiled at him. Better yet, she didn’t flinch when he smiled back. 

He felt the new bracelet on his wrist again. Technically it _was_ a friendship bracelet. Maybe he didn’t have to have friends to give them to, maybe they could help him make friends... 

He took a left at the strawberry fields and walked towards the infirmary, where he knew Will Solace would be working. After all, his therapist hadn’t lied to him yet, right? 


End file.
